Beyond whim

One of the biggest ails of our country is the lack of a comprehensive development plan, one that is thoughtfully-crafted and institutionalized so that programs can be solidly pursued regardless of who holds power.

As things stand now, priorities and policies hinge on the whims of our politicians.

This is true at varying degrees in all levels of the administrative government.

And here in Pangasinan, this stark truth has once again come to the fore with the planned airport project as announced by no less than  the President herself during her State of the Nation Address a couple of months back.

To begin with, that announcement was suspect as it was not contained in the original copy of the SONA speech. Did the President, in a spur of the moment, merely insert the Pangasinan airport idea to please her political allies and perhaps woo Alaminos City Mayor Hernani Braganza, once one of her faithful cabinet  secretaries but became very vocal prior to the May election about his disgust over the government’s kind of politics?

But never mind the President’s motives.

What is blatantly irregular about that announcement is that it was made without any rock-hard blueprint for the proposal, both in terms of technicalities and economics.

Which is why it is just now that the DOTC is starting to inspect potential sites for the airport in Alaminos, based on old and shelved studies made by the Air Transport Authority. A classic case of the cart coming before the horse.

Which is why we are now seeing hints of a brewing  internal strife among Pangasinan’s local officials with Governor Amado Espino Jr. batting for the construction of an airport in Sta. Barbara instead of in Alaminos, which, according to him, is more economically sound. Indeed a classic case of disjointed strategies.

A major and costly project such as an airport should not be undertaken simply because the President snapped her fingers.

Local officials, with help from national-level experts, need to sit down, and draw a clear and crisp plan. At the very least, they need to straighten out and list down, once and for all, exactly what benefits they expect from building an airport. And how the advantages of that airport will actually outlast them all.

Then they can decide whether an airport is really what we need.

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